Words from Our Clients

Search Our Site

Anxiety – Many Forms, Many Skills

It’s the physical symptoms that overwhelm us…

Adrenaline pumping

Fast breathing

Heart racing

Stomach churning

Vision narrowing

Muscles tightening

Palms sweating

Dizziness

Surviving this body onslaught seems impossible to halt. But you can handle it, and not just with the proper medications, though they may help this process. When your brain has been hijacked this way, thought itself is altered, hijacked, with reason and logic a distant memory. Whether it is worry, anxiety, trauma, or fear, you can learn to handle it.

And the physical skills that may help contain it:

First try a little experiment, right where you are. Take in a very gentle breath through your nose (just as you would for yoga) and sending it to the lower lobes of your lungs, under your diaphragm. (You remember your music teacher telling you to breathe from your diaphragm in grade school, right?) Hold that breath a few seconds, and now, narrowing your mouth to the shape of a straw, gently let that breath out through your mouth verrrrrrrrry slowly. Ahh! You have just begun to gain control over your anxiety.

Over the course of several sessions, you can learn many more skills to manage the “hijacking” and regain control. These are concrete skills, tailored to bring down anxiety and panic to a manageable level. Let’s work together to put worry and anxiety in their place.

Relaxation Techniques Testimonial

“You asked me …if I would write up something reflective of how this exercise has impacted my life.

Blood pressure at this week’s appointment was 104/70. Used to be 145/84.

Stopped taking sleep aids for the first time in 12 years (haven’t taken any sine November of 2011)

My glaucoma pressures have dropped to within normal range (at last appointment)

I can focus and read with greater comprehension, speed, and retention of information.

I am articulating more clearly than I have in years.

I feel happy, relaxed and my anxiety levels have greatly diminished.

My ADD symptoms have dissipated significantly.

I have been practicing (Progressive Relaxation) approximately four to five times a week since 2009.”